Design a fantasy map for my novel

Contest Brief

I am in the process of preparing a fantasy novel for publication. I have made up a couple of fantasy maps for it using simple programs, but I'd like something that looks better and more presentable. However, it should still be legible for e-books or printed paperback pages. Whoever can take my old maps and make them into something great and understandable will win!

There are two maps to create: one for the entire realm, broken down to several individual kingdoms, and one map focusing on the kingdoms of Tennence and Strovnik. I'm including two versions of the map of Tennence, in case my older file is not legible enough. The final product doesn't have to match my files exactly, but the shape of the lands and the layout of all landmarks should be the same. Feel free to use whatever font or script you like, as long as you have the right to use it legally, and as long as it's legible. A compass icon on both would be nice.

Public Clarification Board

See #25
You can pick and choose depending on your needs. There are variants that seek to reduce ink usage. Others are there to be as good as possible to look at in greyscale. And some are a happy medium between the two. And the last one is what the "greyscale" is when not yet sapped of its colors. Uploaded just for fun.

3 years ago

Contest Holder

3 years ago

I've been working on the formatting/publication side of the book. It looks like the pages will be 5.5" x 8.5" in black and white. As great as it is to have the maps in color, I don't think I'll be able to print them in the final book in color, without driving up the manufacturing cost. However, if you do provide a color map, it won't be a problem; I just wanted to make you all aware that it may have to be converted to grayscale, and it could affect the way it looks in the final product.

And the type of printing you will be using. Are they going to be in high definition grayscale where you have a nice variety in gradients. Or a more "dot based" gray scaling where there's only kinda large circle hard black inks but creates the illusion of grayscale by spacing the dots.

This may affect the way we would modify our entries.

3 years ago

Contest Holder

3 years ago

They're asking for a minimum of 300 DPI, so I believe it'll print in proper high resolution. You can resubmit your maps in grayscale, especially if you think the difference between color and grayscale is significant enough, but otherwise I can take the maps as they are and see how well they look/print. The colors in these maps have definitely caught my eye, and even though they might appear B&W in the book, it would be nice to have the original file in color. I'm wondering if it could make for a decent poster, which could help in promoting the book.

See #17
Downloaded these nice free mock up Photoshop files to feature the map in a real world scenario. Which of the two variants do you much prefer when seeing it in the real world? Also please do open this up in a full screen to better see the detail.

I would be happy to do this for you, all hand painted. I might have time to submit a sample but considering it'd take me several times longer to do this than it would for someone doing it digitally, it would probably only be a section of the map. :)